In the first 2MB, kernel text is co-located with kernel static page tables setup by head_64.S. CONFIG_DEBUG_RODATA chops this 2MB large page mapping to small 4KB pages as we mark the kernel text as RO, leaving the static page tables as RW. With CONFIG_DEBUG_RODATA disabled, OLTP run on NHM-EP shows 1% improvement with 2% reduction in system time and 1% improvement in iowait idle time. To recover this, move the kernel static page tables to .data section, so that we don't have to break the first 2MB of kernel text to small pages with CONFIG_DEBUG_RODATA. Signed-off-by: Suresh Siddha --- arch/x86/kernel/head_64.S | 3 ++- arch/x86/mm/init_64.c | 6 +++--- 2 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) Index: tree/arch/x86/kernel/head_64.S =================================================================== --- tree.orig/arch/x86/kernel/head_64.S +++ tree/arch/x86/kernel/head_64.S @@ -262,11 +262,11 @@ ENTRY(secondary_startup_64) .quad x86_64_start_kernel ENTRY(initial_gs) .quad INIT_PER_CPU_VAR(irq_stack_union) - __FINITDATA ENTRY(stack_start) .quad init_thread_union+THREAD_SIZE-8 .word 0 + __FINITDATA bad_address: jmp bad_address @@ -340,6 +340,7 @@ ENTRY(name) i = i + 1 ; \ .endr + .data /* * This default setting generates an ident mapping at address 0x100000 * and a mapping for the kernel that precisely maps virtual address Index: tree/arch/x86/mm/init_64.c =================================================================== --- tree.orig/arch/x86/mm/init_64.c +++ tree/arch/x86/mm/init_64.c @@ -698,7 +698,7 @@ static int kernel_set_to_readonly; void set_kernel_text_rw(void) { - unsigned long start = PFN_ALIGN(_stext); + unsigned long start = PFN_ALIGN(_text); unsigned long end = PFN_ALIGN(__start_rodata); if (!kernel_set_to_readonly) @@ -712,7 +712,7 @@ void set_kernel_text_rw(void) void set_kernel_text_ro(void) { - unsigned long start = PFN_ALIGN(_stext); + unsigned long start = PFN_ALIGN(_text); unsigned long end = PFN_ALIGN(__start_rodata); if (!kernel_set_to_readonly) @@ -726,7 +726,7 @@ void set_kernel_text_ro(void) void mark_rodata_ro(void) { - unsigned long start = PFN_ALIGN(_stext), end = PFN_ALIGN(__end_rodata); + unsigned long start = PFN_ALIGN(_text), end = PFN_ALIGN(__end_rodata); unsigned long rodata_start = ((unsigned long)__start_rodata + PAGE_SIZE - 1) & PAGE_MASK; -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/